Writing
Notes on getting a local business found and hired — search, AI visibility, email deliverability, and the small things that quietly cost you work.
- October 21, 2026 Why so many websites went dark this week On October 21, governments across Europe took their own websites offline on purpose. The cause was a serious flaw in PHP — the software under every WordPress site. Here's what happened, why older sites don't get the fix, and three questions to ask whoever looks after yours.
- September 28, 2026 Nearly half your visitors judge your website by how it looks Stanford spent three years and over 4,500 people measuring what makes a website credible. The finding: nearly half of people judge it on looks alone, before they read a word. Here's what that means for a small-business site.
- September 24, 2026 Do you actually need a website if you have a Facebook page? Sometimes a Facebook page really is enough — here's exactly when. And here are the three tells that it isn't: you don't own it, you're invisible on Google, and it reads as less legit than the business you actually run.
- September 13, 2026 What a small-business website actually costs in St. Charles County (and what you get for it) Five ways a business around here ends up with a website — DIY, bundled, managed vendor, agency, and what I do — with real numbers for each and what you actually get. Prices checked September 2026.
- August 17, 2026 I Checked Two Thousand Local Businesses From the Outside. I Still Couldn't Tell You Which Ones Were Losing Money. I scanned 446 local websites and the public mail settings on 1,525 domains. Both turned up real problems — and then I couldn't tell a single owner what any of it was costing them, because the things that move money are only visible from inside.
- August 13, 2026 Anyone Can Send Email As Your Business. Here's How Many Local Companies Have Nothing Stopping Them. I checked the public mail settings on 1,525 local business domains. Three quarters have nothing in place to stop someone sending email that appears to come from them. Here's what that means, how I checked, and everything that could be wrong with it.
- August 6, 2026 I Checked 446 Small Business Websites in St. Charles County 446 local business websites in St. Charles County, checked from the outside. More than one in three paying a monthly vendor measure nothing at all. Every figure sourced.
- August 5, 2026 Is Anyone Really Asking AI for a Plumber? You've gotten the email — customers supposedly ditched Google for ChatGPT. The 45% stat is real, and almost everyone misreads it. What the data actually shows, every figure named and sourced, and the free hour that tells you where your business stands.